We have been focusing our canvassing efforts in Arizona on the silver “Toss Up” Congressional District west of Phoenix (AZ-4; Stanton-D) and the currently Democratic district that was mapped into a more Republican one (AZ-6; Kirkpatrick-D) east of Tucson. But that’s not the reason we are knocking on doors there. We are focused on maintaining a Democratic Senate because this election seems more important than ever.
236 volunteers came out in Arizona to knock on doors last Saturday — and, once again, making it the place where we had the most volunteers last Saturday. We asked voters who opened their doors if they were registered to vote at their current address. And we note that one of the benefits for those who are not currently registered at their current address is that the new Arizona voter registration form allows you to sign up for the Active Early Voting List to receive their early ballot by mail. Surprisingly, this is encouraging voters to update their voter registrations! It’s the little things.
Our major focus has been the Issues Survey. Normally, around 65% of the voters we talk to at their doors answer some or all of these questions although it was slightly lower on Saturday. Each week, we ask voters about what issue they think is the most urgent facing America right now. Inflation was, once again and has been every week except the first week canvassing, the top Issue mentioned by voters we talked to on Saturday. Last week, concerns very broadly classified as Personal Security Issues was second; this week we had people talk about concerns around a prison break, unease about potential increase in the migrant population and crime, but in a more personal, rather than theoretical sense, that we could generally classify this was. Reproductive Rights was the third most mentioned issue, with very specific concerns about daughters and granddaughters being mentioned to our volunteers.
Feedback from Arizona, though, differed from that we were hearing in Nevada. It was more personal, more poignant. Older women afraid of the future for their female family members. As I write this, I see from the Guttmacher Institute that Arizona had a Pre-Roe ban which may explain this (but I am speculating). Nevada does not have any triggering provisions that could alter the health care concerns of women if Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health is ruled as the Alito leak suggested.
Hope Springs from Field PAC led canvasses in the suburbs of the two Arizona metropolitan areas last Saturday. We have been knocking on the doors of Democrats and Independents in the western suburbs of both Phoenix and Tucson, swing neighborhoods were at least three conservative groups have also been out knocking on doors, although one is totally focused on a single issue. It is clear that there is a ground war going on in Arizona, and we need to rise to the challenge here.
We knock on the doors of Democratic and Independent voters, which means we aren’t seeing responses from anyone (yet) who identifies as Republican. At every door, we leave a piece of “show the flag” lit, something that tells them we were there and hopefully reinforces the Democratic brand. By our work and our presence we are trying to convey that Democrats care and we listen. The lit focuses on the things voters told us were important to them last fall, aiming to appeal to every voter. Far and away the number one issue that the voters we talked to in the Senate Swing States was inflation or price increases, and I imagine that concern has only increased since November.
But the main focus of our canvassing right now is the Issues Survey, asking voters for their input and concerns. We find that most voters who aren’t in a hurry or in the middle of something are willing to answer at least a couple of these questions, especially their top issue or concern and their views of President Biden. Voter responses to the questionnaire are entered into VAN and made available to all Democratic candidates who use VAN in the state after the primary. Creating this kind of data isn’t done with a specific goal in mind but has the purpose of engaging voters and creating a dataset that any Democratic candidate can use in opposition to a Republican.
Collecting data about the Issues that voters actually think and talk about, though, is extraordinarily useful for Democratic campaigns, and the data we collect will be available to all Democrats who use VAN after the primaries.
Support (measured as job approval) for President Biden rose slightly to 65% from the voters we talked to on Saturday. Disapproval fell to a 12%. Support for Senator Kelly also rose this week (to 75%). You can see in the graphic here that Senator Kelly is now “polling” above President Biden amongst the voters we have talked to in Arizona, which may explain why Kelly (as well as other Democratic Senators) feel free to break with the administration on issues they think voters care about there.
But this approach, using the Issues survey as our main conversational entry point, is really simple for people who have never canvassed before (and one reason why the number of our volunteers willing to canvass grows almost every week). The Issues Survey means that instead of persuading voters to accept that campaign’s issues priorities, we are asking voters to tell us about their issues priorities. For volunteers who are nervous about canvassing, this approach really allows them to ease into it, and really takes the pressure off. Voter responses to the questionnaire are entered into VAN and made available to all Democratic candidates who use VAN in the state after the primary. Creating this kind of data isn’t done with a specific goal in mind but has the purpose of engaging voters and creating a dataset that any Democratic candidate can use in opposition to a Republican.
Example of Q-slip
This approach also means volunteers don’t have to be prepped to talk authoritatively about Democratic or Democratic candidates’ issues and priorities. In fact, we discourage answering these kinds of questions. One reason (but by no means the only reason) we walk with Q(uestion) Slips and Observation Forms is to keep the focus on the voter and their concerns, not the campaigns’ or candidates’. If voters have a question, we fill out a Q-slip and let the campaigns/candidates speak for themselves. And we discovered last year that, if we do somehow end up talking to a Trumpist or Fox News consumer, this approach really circumvents their “own a lib” tactics.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors in a grassroots-led effort to increase awareness of the fact that Democrats care about our voters and are working to protect their rights, and, in March, we will begin an even bigger effort. We are thinking about how to mitigate Voter Suppression efforts, get around them and make sure we have "super compliance," both informing and helping our voters meet the requirements and get out and vote. We are taking those efforts to the doors of the communities most effected (the intended targets or victims) of these new voter suppression laws.
Obviously, we rely on grassroots support, so if you support field/grassroots organizing, voter registration (and follow-up) and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization
Hope Springs from Field PAC was started by former Obama Field Organizers because field was the cornerstone of our success. But the reason we won the Iowa Caucus in 2008 was because we registered voters and then turned them out! The approach we adopted was focused on listening, on connecting voters and their story to the candidate and our cause. Repeated face to face interactions are critical. And we are among those who believe that Democrats didn’t do as well in the 2020 Congressional races as expected because we didn’t knock on doors — and we didn’t register new voters (while Republicans did). We are returning to the old school basics: repeated contacts, repeated efforts to remind them of protocols, meeting them were they are. Mentoring those who need it (like first time and newly registered voters). Reminding, reminding, reminding, and then chasing down those voters whose ballots need to be cured.
Hope Springs has targeted states that have competitive Senate races in 2022 as well as districts that are remapped in ways that offer opportunities or vulnerabilities for Democrats next year. As not every state has completed their re-maps, re-districting hasn’t yet made those opportunities/needs apparent. The Senate map started out clear. That may be changing. There are places we need to defend (Georgia and Arizona) and there are opportunities. North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are such opportunities. We’d like to get into Nevada, too, and perhaps others that appear more competitive at that time — if we can generate the resources needed to do so. There is a lot of work to be done!
We also ask voters who open their doors whether they want to fill out a Constituent Service Request form. And, when we start using this approach somewhere, we get a higher response rate on service requests than we do after we have been knocking for awhile. I can’t really explain why this is true, but it was true on Saturday, as well. This week, we collected 57 CSRs in Arizona.
Constituent Service Requests are handed over to (hopefully Democratic) office holders with responsibilities for the area of the request. Q-slips will be sent directly to the campaigns of Democratic candidates. Comments from Observation Forms are entered into VAN, as well.
We specifically ask voters if they have any concerns about the upcoming elections. This question can be fraught with inference in Arizona but we try to focus voters on whether they have direct or indirect experience with voter intimidation or voter suppress in prior elections. Voters who say they have experience with voting issues are asked to fill out Incident Reports. We found 1 voter who wanted to fill out Incident Reports in Arizona on Saturday. We collate these Incident Reports, to be shared with local, state and federal officials in charge of voting, as well as use them to plan out our Election Protection strategy in the fall. They could also be used in court cases. In this specific instance, the voter arrived at their polling place when it should have been open but it wasn’t. If this is a pattern at this polling location, it could be used to keep it (and other like it) open past the official closing time by a court injunction.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has a hybrid approach. We aren’t interested in competing with regular campaign field organizing. We are in the field before they get there and then move on when the Democratic campaigns start their intensive field work. Indeed, when we wind up the typical field work by Labor Day, we will encourage all the volunteers working with us to move over to the Senate campaigns in their states (and hope that our field organizers will be hired on by those campaigns). After Labor Day, we will begin organizing our Election Protection Project.
But we are also cognizant that Democratic turnout has traditionally dropped off more than Republicans in non-presidential years. So early, frequent voter contact is more important to our side. Equally important, though, is that starting early means that we can make up for our inability to register new voters in the presidential election because we took Covid and the health of our base seriously. Registering new voters (and re-registering existing voters at their current address, in compliance with HAVA) at their door is the hard way to do voter registration, but we catch people that our voter registration campaigns can miss because of their emphasis on larger-scale or mass voter registration.
By starting early, and aiming towards super-compliance with these really, really onerous provisions, Hope Springs from Field PAC seeks to undermine that strategy, while informing voters about the new laws and regulations aimed at them. There’s a lot of work to be done, but fortunately, the three states that are making it most difficult are also states in which you can knock on doors at least 10 months out of the year. And, with your help, we will be there, getting our people to super-comply with these restrictive provisions.
If you are able to support our efforts to protect Democratic voters, especially in minority communities, expand the electorate, and believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation and election protection, please help:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization
Thank you for your support.
